SO you think I exaggerate when I say global warming is just the latest cause of the closet totalitarian?

Then pay close attention to an experiment the warmists are about to inflict on the people of Norfolk Island.

Be warned. What’s being trialled there with $390,000 of Gillard Government money may, if it works, be spread to the mainland, say the researchers.

Which means it’s coming for you.

The plan - and, no, I’m not joking - is to put Norfolk Islanders on rations to fight both global warming and obesity.

Funded by the Australian Research Council, and approved by the Socialist Left Science Minister Kim Carr, researchers from the Southern Cross University will give each volunteer on the island a “carbon card”.

Every time they buy petrol, electricity or an air flight, they will have “carbon units” deducted from the fixed allowance on their card.

More units will be lost each time they buy fatty foods, or produce flown in from a long way away.

If, at the end of each year or so, they have carbon units left over, they can sell them. If they’ve blown their allocation, they must buy more.

But each year, the number of carbon units in this market will be cut, causing their price to soar - and thus the price of extra food, power and petrol to rise - because the idea is to cut greenhouse gases and make Norfolk Islanders trim, taut and terrifically moral.

Conservatives well aware of human fallibility will immediately spot the obvious flaw in this latest scheme of the Left to remake humanity.

It’s this: what happens when people run out of their carbon rations, and can’t afford the extra units they need to buy more fuel, power or even food?

This is precisely what I put this week to Garry Egger, head of this experiment and professor of Lifestyle Medicine and Applied Health Promotion at SCU.

His response was astonishing and revealing, because this basic question - which so exposes the teeth of the totalitarian - would have been one you’d think he’d long wrestled with.

After all, his personal carbon trading idea is not new, so much does it appeal to the fingerwaggers and bullies infesting the global warming faith.

As far back as 2006, Britain’s then environmental minister, David Miliband, proposed a similar scheme, since endorsed by the Environment Agency and House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, which even insisted the Government defy howls of protest from mere voters.

“Widespread public acceptance, while desirable, should not be a pre-condition for a personal carbon trading scheme; the need to reduce emissions is simply too urgent,” the MPs said, before being driven off to dinner.

(Or as our own Professor Clive Hamilton, author and former Greens candidate, puts it, global warming is so “horrible” that leaders must look to “canvassing of emergency responses such as the suspension of democratic processes”.)

Nor is Egger’s idea new in Australia, The farcical “ideas summit” of prime minister Kevin Rudd’s 1000 “best and brightest” Australians also recommended it - which is a very good reason to be alert and alarmed.

“We have the technology now to create a ‘carbon account’ for individuals,” says the summit’s report, in between appeals for chairbound workers to be given 30 minutes a day of exercise and stairs to climb at work.

Yet although carbon rationing plans have been kicked around for years by the Left, that key question of the conservative has still not been answered. As in: what if people don’t want to live your dream? What if they rebel, or merely fail you?

Let’s go to the transcript of my interview with Egger on MTR 1377 this week, to see how he answered.

Me: What happens to those people who overdraw their carbon emissions ...

Egger: In the first year you are just warned ... (Later) if you overspend, you’ve got to buy the units that are cashed in ...

Me: If you put this in on the mainland and you were really strict about it - you really thought the world was warming very, very dangerously and someone exceeded their rations of these carbon units - one would presume that you would make food, for example, too expensive for them to buy.

Egger: That’s right ... so if you’ve got, for example, a very fatty unhealthy food that is imported from overseas which takes a lot of carbon to develop it, then the price would go up ...

Me: What happens to a very fat family, a very irresponsibly fat family, and they’ve blown their carbon budget to the scheissenhausen and you’ve made their food terribly expensive? What about the kids? They go to breakfast and they’ve got one baked bean?

Egger: In general you’ll find that in a very fat family they are low-income earners ... so those people would actually benefit from a scheme like this because the food that they buy, the energy that they use, they don’t use as much energy as the rich anyway ...

Me: But what happens? Their ration of carbon credits runs out and you’ve made food too expensive for them to buy. What happens to them?

Egger: Again, they get money back from doing the right thing.

Me: No, but they’ve done the wrong thing. That’s why they are fat and poor. They’ve done the wrong thing, they’ve run out of their carbon credits. What are you going to do to them then, when the food’s too expensive to buy?

Egger: There are going to be personal cases like this that need to be worked out and they need to be worked out in the tax system as well as in the carbon credits system.

Egger, founder of GutBusters, undoubtedly means to do good. He has no wish to see children starve.

YET I think we have here an insight into a key failing of so many grand schemes of the Left to improve resistant humans or build for them someone else’s idea of the perfect society.

These schemes so often are too perfect for the flawed humans they supposedly serve. But it’s the humans who must then adapt to the system, and not the other way around. Which is where some force is required; some democracy sacrificed.

What a buzz for the closet totalitarian then, to bully other people “for their

own good” - in this case, to “save the planet”.

When the cause is so just, which planet-saver could let some contemptible fatty stand in their way, begging for the carbon credits to feed their chubby children?

On the other hand, which planet-saver would deny themselves any aid or comfort in this great struggle?

Need an illustration of what I’m talking about? Egger himself plans to jet off to Mexico next month to boast to a United Nations global warming conference how he persuaded Norfolk Islanders to ration just such joy flights for themselves.

This is your future coming right at you, folks. Best you realise it’s no longer a joke.

A software developer has created a "chatbot" program for Twitter to automatically detect set phrases associated with arguments put forward by those skeptical of anthropogenic global warming, and to send automated replies of set phrases debunking their arguments.http://www.physorg.c...-arguments.html

Nigel Leck’s creation is @AI_AGW (also known as Turing Test), and the script searches the Twitter site for hundreds of phrases he believes tend to be used by those who think global warming is not occurring, or who think it is occurring but is not anthropogenic or entirely anthropogenic. When the script finds one of the phrases it then "tweets" a response from an extensive database of countering phrases.

The return tweets are selected to match the phrases found so, for example, tweets about global warming occurring on Mars or Neptune will produce a response suggesting this does not prove the sun is warming and producing Earth’s global warming. Tweets often contain a link to a scientific source or a video refuting the argument.

Leck said he originally wrote many of the rebuttals himself, but he has now extracted many from a university source, but one which he will not identify. Some of the responses relate to religion, which is where Leck says debates with the chatbot often end up.

The tweets are not identified as autoresponses, although the name provides clues, and Leck said many people receiving them continue their “conversations” for hours or days, which is possible because the program selects from a range of responses and does not reply the same way each time.

Leck said if the program “argues them into a corner,” there tends to be two “crowds”: one who resort to the “God created it that way” final response, and a second group Leck calls “skeptics so unyielding they won’t be swayed by any amount of argumentation.”

In the future our grand children and our great grandchildren will ask the questions: “Daddy where are all the forests?” ; “Where are all the wildlife?”; and “Daddy, why are scientists held in greater contempt than used car salesmen and politicians?”

In answer, our ghosts will be able to point to things like the issue referred to in this post. It illustrates the smug, ignorant, self righteousness of the ideologue masquerading as a scientist.

In this case, what started as a fraud on the part of a small group of corrupt scientists creating a phony crisis in order to boost their research grants, has now morphed into a world wide moneymaking machine.

While the science of climate is complex, there are other aspects of the AGW debate that can be considered illustrative of the whole issue.

As an example: we can consider one of the AGW warmists favourite topics: bio fuels.

In addition to the huge cash churn involved in the laundering of “carbon credits”, and the imposition of “carbon taxes”, we are seeing our rainforests being leveled and replaced by palm oil and sugar cane plantations. The product of these plantations is being used to fuel our cars.

Similarly, around 10% of our corn crop is being converted to fuel for our cars.

Is there nothing more stupid than using food crops and prime agricultural land to fuel cars?

Yes there is.

When real scientists do the math, it is abundantly clear that the whole AGW fraud and its offshoots are destroying our environment and ravaging our planet in a manner that should send everybody into the streets screaming.

It is not rocket science to demonstrate the clearly visible effects of the fraudulent AGW politics; any first year engineering student should be able to demonstrate the net energy deficit of bio fuels. Any first year economics major should be able to demonstrate the destructive effect of anti carbon policies on both the economy and the environment.

We can extend this thinking into the basic science of climate: we have a herd of supposed scientists and other “experts” disregarding the very basic science and enthusiastically joining the lemmings as they head for the cliff.

Hence, the pseudo scientific robotic stupidity of the twitter response only serves to deepen the despair amongst those who can see the planet heading for destruction as its inhabitants hold hands and cheerfully head for their collective suicide.

Atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service. His book Unstoppable Global Warming - Every 1500 Years (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007) presents the evidence for natural climate cycles of warming and cooling and became a New York Times bestseller. He is the organizer and chairman of NIPCC (Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change), whose reports reach conclusions that contradict those of the U.N.-supported IPCC.

November 14, 2010
The Global Warming Court Battle
By S. Fred Singer

Kenneth Cuccinelli II, elected as the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia in November 2009, has demanded from the University of Virginia (my university) the e-mails and other information of Dr. Michael Mann, who was an assistant professor of environmental sciences there from 1995 to 2005.

From the e-mails leaked from the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the so-called Climategate affair, we know that Professor Phil Jones was at the center of a conspiracy to manipulate temperature data. His American analogue was Michael Mann. Even though Jones recommended deletion of all e-mails, it is possible that many e-mails will still be found on the UVA server and furnish the "smoking gun" that can tell us just how the temperature data had been manipulated.

The UEA e-mails tell us of attempts to "hide the decline" (of temperature) using "Mike [Mann]'s Nature trick." It is important now to discover the truth, either from e-mail evidence or by direct testimony. Unfortunately, none of the investigations so far have delved into this matter, but instead have produced what amounts to a series of whitewashes.

The University of Virginia is fighting the demand for the data using outside lawyers and claiming "academic freedom" among other such excuses. I cannot comment on the legal implications of the AG's investigation. It should be noted, however, that UVA was quite willing to deliver up the e-mails of Professor Pat Michaels when Greenpeace asked for them in December 2009. It makes the UVA protestations sound rather hypocritical.

We live in an Orwellian world where myth and propaganda have replaced science and reason, even at the highest levels of discourse. In May 2010, Science ran a letter signed by 255 members of the National Academy of Sciences attacking Cuccinelli. The letter contained numerous spurious assertions as if they were scientific fact. Lacking expertise and ignorant of the actual data, the signers simply accepted a story that matched their ideological convictions.

Then, on May 13, Nature ran an editorial ("Science subpoenaed") attacking Cuccinelli, and in the process labeled those who dared question Mann's science as "climate-change deniers." That term would seem to include all of us who recognize that for the past two million years, the climate has been changing, dominated by ice ages, interrupted only by brief warm periods; that for the past ten thousand years, the earth has been both warmer and colder than today; and that there was a Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and a Little Ice Age (LIA). Who indeed can deny that climate changes?

The Nature editorial refers to Michael Mann as "internationally respected." I would use more neutral language, like "prominently mentioned in the UEA e-mails, aka Climategate." The editorial states states, correctly, that "no evidence was given of wrongdoing [by Mann]." But isn't that the purpose of the AG's investigation? Certainly, the references in the e-mails to "Mike's Nature trick" in order to "hide the decline" might lead one to think that there has been some skullduggery.

The editorial then identifies Mann with the infamous hockey stick graph (published first in Nature, 1998), which did away with the Medieval Warm Period and also the Little Ice Age from which the global climate is just now recovering. It may have escaped notice that Mann has now discovered the existence of the MWP and LIA (PNAS 2008), which has bent the shaft of the hockey stick all out of shape. Well, who says that the age of miracles has passed?

Fortunately for climate alarmists, the upturned "blade" of the hockey stick is still there, showing rapidly rising temperatures over the past thirty years -- thanks to the valiant efforts of Prof. Phil Jones. We are breathlessly waiting for expert scrutiny of his methods of selecting data from thousands of weather stations to arrive at a single number for "global temperature." Perhaps Jones will reveal the algorithms he devised to "adjust and correct" the raw data. But unfortunately, he did not save the original temperature records; as the saying goes, "The dog ate them."

The editorial then states that the UEA e-mails were "stolen." Perhaps they were; but until one has evidence, one may be accusing an unknown whistle-blower who resented what was being done to the climate data and to science. I won't even mention what the resulting climate scares are doing to the economies of nations and the living standards of their populations.

I was wondering just how long it would take the Nature editorial to suggest a parallel between climate skepticism and the tobacco lobby. Well done! It's too bad that global warming cannot be shown to cause lung cancer -- not yet, at any rate. But more research money may yet uncover such a connection. There's still hope.

The Washington Post weighed in with an editorial on October 6, 2010 ("Cuccinelli seems determined to embarrass Virginia"). Among many misstatements of fact, it cites a 2006 inquiry from the National Academy of Sciences on reconstructing historical temperature data and then claims that Mann's "basic conclusions appear sound." But the NAS inquiry into Prof. Mann's "hockey stick" did not support his basic conclusion -- that the 20th century was the warmest in the past thousand years.

Beyond this, the "Climategate" e-mails released in November 2009 put Mann at the center of an international conspiracy to manipulate the temperature data that form the basis of worldwide political action (including by the U.S. Congress) to "combat climate change." We also learned that the same group of scientists actively urged the deletion of any e-mails that might implicate them in this conspiracy to "hide the decline" of temperatures that were supposed to be rising. Unfortunately, the Post editorial ignores these relevant facts.

As if by pre-arrangement, on October 8, the Post carried an op-ed by Mann which attacked preemptively Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the potential chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, who will likely launch an investigation of Climategate. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) may do the same if he takes over a Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security. Mann asks, What could Issa, Sensenbrenner, and Cuccinelli possibly think they might uncover now, a year after the e-mails were published? He claims that he has been fully exonerated by several internal investigations of Penn State (his present employer), UEA, and the EPA and again appeals to the failed science of the IPCC (which, however, no longer gives any credence to his hockey stick result).

Rep Joe Barton (R-TX), in a letter to the Post (October 12) reminds that his public hearings in 2006 "made it clear that Mr. Mann's global warming projections were rooted in fundamental errors of methodology that had been cemented in place as 'consensus' by a closed network of friends."

In responding to Barton's letter of October 12, the chairman of the National Academy panel Prof. Gerald North (Letter, October 17) then claims that "we have not found any evidence that his [Mann's] results were incorrect or even out of line with other works published since his original papers." North's statement is factually incorrect: There are numerous papers, published in peer-reviewed journals, which show clearly that the 20th century was not the warmest in the past thousand years (as claimed by Mann). Medieval temperatures were substantially greater -- and so were temperatures during the earlier Roman Warm Period. All of this is in addition to the valid criticism of Mann's statistical methodology. Tellingly, Canadian Prof. Steven McIntyre and Ross McKitrick (M&M) showed that even random data fed into the Mann algorithm would always yield a warmest 20th century.

Some final thoughts: Being charitable, I will assume that Mann made honest statistical and other errors in his 1998 and 1999 papers. But after these errors were published widely by M&M, Mann's behavior has been unethical to say the least. He has not replied to the critiques, nor even referenced them. He has just ignored them and tried to muddle the situation. (The National Academy report did the same.)

Is Mann guilty of fraud? I don't know; much depends on what Cuccinelli uncovers. But I am of the opinion that Mann should formally withdraw his flawed papers and no longer refer to them in his bibliography or in grant applications without at least a footnote. Formal withdrawal could create a storm, however, since the 2001 IPCC report built its case for man-made global warming on the validity of the hockey stick. There may be interesting times ahead.

Atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service. His book Unstoppable Global Warming - Every 1500 Years (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007) presents the evidence for natural climate cycles of warming and cooling and became a New York Times bestseller. He is the organizer and chairman of NIPCC (Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change), whose reports reach conclusions that contradict those of the U.N.-supported IPCC.

If you needed any more evidence that the entire theory of manmade global warming was a scheme to redistribute wealth you got it Sunday when a leading member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told a German news outlet, "[W]e redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy."

Such was originally published by Germany's NZZ Online Sunday, and reprinted in English by the Global Warming Policy Foundation moments ago:

(NZZ AM SONNTAG): The new thing about your proposal for a Global Deal is the stress on the importance of development policy for climate policy. Until now, many think of aid when they hear development policies.

(OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.

(NZZ): That does not sound anymore like the climate policy that we know.

(EDENHOFER): Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. Why? Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet - and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 - there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.

(NZZ): De facto, this means an expropriation of the countries with natural resources. This leads to a very different development from that which has been triggered by development policy.

(EDENHOFER): First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

For the record, Edenhofer was co-chair of the IPCC's Working Group III, and was a lead author of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report released in 2007 which controversially concluded, "Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations."

As such, this man is a huge player in advancing this theory, and he has now made it quite clear - as folks on the realist side of this debate have been saying for years - that this is actually an international economic scheme designed to redistribute wealth.

Readers are encouraged to review the entire interview at GWPF or Google's slightly different translation.

1Byrd Polar Research Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio2Danish Meteorological Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark3Department of Geography, University of Ličge, Ličge, Belgium4Department of Geography, University of Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia5Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, City College of New York, New York, New York6Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

October 19, 2010

Summary

Greenland climate in 2010 is marked by record-setting high air temperatures, ice loss by melting, and marine-terminating glacier area loss. Summer seasonal average (June-August) air temperatures around Greenland were 0.6 to 2.4°C above the 1971-2000 baseline and were highest in the west. A combination of a warm and dry 2009-2010 winter and the very warm summer resulted in the highest melt rate since at least 1958 and an area and duration of ice sheet melting that was above any previous year on record since at least 1978. The largest recorded glacier area loss observed in Greenland occurred this summer at Petermann Glacier, where 290 km2 of ice broke away. The rate of area loss in marine-terminating glaciers this year (419 km2) was 3.4 times that of the previous 8 years, when regular observations are available. There is now clear evidence that the ice area loss rate of the past decade (averaging 120 km2/year) is greater than loss rates pre-2000.

Coastal surface temperatures

A clear pattern of exceptional and record-setting warm air temperatures is evident at long-term meteorological stations around Greenland (Table GL1). For instance:

* Nuuk (64.2°N along Greenland's west coast): Year 2010 summer, spring, and winter 2009/2010 were the warmest on record since record keeping began in 1873. * Aasiaat (69.0°N along Greenland's west coast): It was the warmest month of May and August, and the warmest winter, spring, 2nd warmest summer and the warmest year (July 2009-August 2010) since record keeping began in 1951. * Narsarssuaq (61.2°N in southern Greenland): It was the warmest month of May, and the warmest winter, spring and the warmest year (July 2009-August 2010) since record keeping began in 1951. * Thule AFB, Pituffik (76.5°N along Greenland's west coast): It was the warmest spring (March-May) on record, which began in 1961.

Warming was greatest in Winter (December-February), with temperatures 3.8°C to 8.8°C above the 1971-2000 baseline. The only cooler-than-normal air temperatures were in the winter in east Greenland and are not statistically significant. Winter warming is relevant to increased summer melt because warmed snow or ice volumes require less heat to be brought to the melting point. Under these conditions, melt onset occurs earlier than normal and the snow cover duration is shorter. This leads to a lower average albedo earlier in the summer, allowing for a greater absorption of solar energy, more melting and higher temperatures, especially on land once snow cover is completely melted and exposes bare (dark) land. The "ice-albedo" feedback, responsible for amplified warming in the high latitudes is clearly operating here. A pattern of "polar amplification" of warming has been evident in surface air temperature records for decades (Hansen and Lebedev, 1987).

Atmospheric circulation anomalies

The NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data indicate warm airflow from the south over the southwestern part of the Greenland ice sheet (Fig. GL1).

Figure GL1. The geopotential height and wind anomalies for JJA 2010 (referenced to the 1971–2000 mean) at 500 hPa from the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis. Areas where geopotential height anomalies were at least twice the 1971–2000 standard deviation are hatched. The blue arrows represent wind vector anomalies, with scale indicated by the blue arrow below the plot.

Surface melt extent and duration

The area and duration of melting on the ice sheet continued to expand in 2010, as compared with past years via daily passive microwave satellite remote sensing observations (Mote, 2007). April to mid-September (18 September) 2010 had about an 8% more extensive melt area than 2007, when the previous record maximum melt extent was observed (Figure GL2). The 2010 melt extent through mid September was 38% greater than the 1979-2007 average, and the June to August extent was 26% greater than average. .

Figure GL2. Time series of Greenland melt extent derived from passive microwave remote sensing from 2010 (red), 2007 (blue) and the 1979-2007 average (green), after Mote (2007).

Abnormal melt duration was concentrated along the western ice sheet (Figure GL3), consistent with anomalous warm air inflow during the summer (Figure GL1) and abnormally high winter air temperatures which led to warm pre-melt conditions. The melt duration was as much as 50 days greater than average in areas of west Greenland that had an elevation between 1200 and 2400 meters above sea level. In May, areas at low elevation along the west coast of the ice sheet melted up to about 15 days longer than the average. NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis data suggest that May surface temperatures were up to 5°C above the 1971–2000 baseline average. June and August also exhibited large positive melting day anomalies (up to 20 days) along the western and southern ice sheet. During August temperatures were 3°C above the average over most of the ice sheet, with the exception of the northeastern ice sheet. Along the southwestern ice sheet, the number of melting days in August has increased by 24 days over the past 30 years.

In May, areas at low elevation along the West coast of the ice sheet melted up to about 15 days longer than the average; June and August also show large positive melting day anomaly values (up to 20 days) along the West and South regions of the ice sheet. NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis data suggest that May surface temperatures were up to 5°C above the average. During August temperatures were 3°C above the average over most of the ice sheet, with the exception of the northeast ice sheet. Along the South-West portion of the ice sheet, the number of melting days in August has increased by 24 days over the past 30 years.

In-situ observations from the K-Transect

Ice sheet surface mass balance from September 2009-2010 was by far the lowest since 1990, when routine measurement began along an elevation transect of in-situ observations located near Kangerlussuaq at 67°N on the western flank of the ice sheet (van de Wal et al. 2005). Averaged over the 150-km long elevation K-transect, from 340 to 1500 meters above sea level, the surface mass balance was highly significant at 2.7 standard deviations below the 1990-2010 average. The altitude of the snow line (the extent of the melt of the winter snow cover) was higher than ever, with a very early onset of the melt season that continued until the beginning of September. Surface albedo values at the weather stations dropped below average and air temperatures in summer were above average.

Marine-terminating glacier area changes

Marine-terminating glaciers are of particular interest because they represent the outlets through which the ice can move most quickly and in the largest quantities out to the sea, contributing to rising average global sea levels and drawing down the inland ice reservoir. Glacier front ice area loss is also of concern because it is associated with reduced flow-resistance, which leads to accelerated ice loss from the inland ice.

Daily surveys of Greenland ice sheet marine-terminating outlet glaciers, from cloud-free Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) visible imagery (http://bprc.osu.edu/MODIS/), indicate that in the past year Greenland glaciers collectively lost an area of 419 km2. This is more than 3 times the loss rates of the previous 8 years, 2002-2009, which was 121 km2/year (Figure GL4). 7/10 of this year's loss came from the 290 km2 ice island detachment from Petermann glacier in far northwest Greenland (see: http://bprc.osu.edu/MODIS/?p=69). Glacier ice area loss elsewhere (i.e. outside the Petermann Glacier) remained near the 121 km2/year rate observed during the past decade. There is now clear evidence that the ice area loss rate of the past decade is greater than loss rates pre-2000.

Figure GL4.Cumulative net annual area changes for the 35 widest marine-terminating glacier outlets to the Greenland ice sheet. Year 2010 net area changes are shown with and without the Petermann glacier loss. The trend without the Petermann loss is illustrated by the triangle in year 2010.

A number of other large outlet glaciers also lost significant amounts of ice area: Zachariae Isstrřm in northeast Greenland lost 43 km2; Humboldt glacier in northwest Greenland lost 20 km2; Ikertivaq glacier in Southeast Greenland lost 15 km2; and the 5 glaciers that empty into Upernavik glacier bay in northwest Greenland lost 14 km2.

Since 2000, the net area change of the 35 widest marine-terminating glaciers is -1535 km2; equivalent to an ice area loss 17.5 times the size of the 87.5 km2 Manhattan Island. The total effective glacier length change has been, on average, -1.7 km since year 2000. While the overall area change indicates the largest observed retreat, 7 of 35 glaciers did advanced in 2010 relative to 2009. The largest glacier advances were at Ryder and Storstrřmmen glacier, each advancing 4.6 and 4.2 km2, respectively. Land-terminating glaciers are not part of our survey but most certainly lost a much smaller area because they are so much slower-moving than marine-terminating glaciers.

Precipitation and surface mass balance

The balance between snowfall gain and meltwater loss is positive for any healthy ice mass. In 2010, the MAR regional climate data assimilation model simulated that the ice sheet surface mass balance was 90% less positive than normal (Table GL2); the lowest net mass accumulation rate since 1958 when data to drive the model become available (Figure GL5). This condition reflects a very heavy melt year combined with below normal ice sheet snow accumulation. The high melt rate in 2010 was a consequence of:

* a warmer winter favoring an earlier melt season onset because the snowpack is relatively warm and, thus, can reach its melting temperature more quickly. * a drier winter favoring less snow pack and thus an earlier appearance of a darker surface (e.g. bare ice or the previous year summer snow surface), which has a lower surface albedo. * a very warm summer. * a summer with less snowfall than normal (-20%), impacting the surface albedo which was low during the whole melting season in 2010.

The temperature and precipitation anomalies are very likely the result of regional circulation anomalies illustrated in Figure GL1. The main anomalies occur along the south-western margin where the number of days with bare ice was higher than normal. Compared to Summer 2007, where melt anomalies took place in both ablation and percolation zones (Tedesco et al., 2008), most of melt anomalies of this summer took place in the bare ice zone.

Figure GL5. Time series of hydrological year (1 Sep to 31 Aug) mean surface mass balance (SMB) component anomalies simulated by the regional climate MAR model (Fettweis et al., 2010). The differences between the SMB time series and the snowfall minus run-off time series are attributed to rainfall and sublimation/evaporation.

A long-term resident of Greenland wrote on 4 February, 2010: "we don´t have snow, we don´t have the cold" ... "This weather this year is really different, in 30 years that I live in Ilulissat [69.0°N along Greenland's west coast], that is the first year in this conditions. We have lot of dog sledding tourists, but we cannot do the tour, too much ice on the hills and dangerous to drive by sled." ... "no snow at all". Later, the same source remarked of "10-12 days of" continuous "heat wave" like weather, in June, with "a lot of blue skies".

Ilulissat, Greenland – The July 27-29 2007 U.S. Senate trip to Greenland to investigate fears of a glacier meltdown revealed an Arctic land where current climatic conditions are neither alarming nor linked to a rise in man-made carbon dioxide emissions, according to many of the latest peer-reviewed scientific findings. Research in 2006 found that Greenland has been warming since the 1880’s, but since 1955, temperature averages at Greenland stations have been colder than the period between 1881-1955.

A 2006 study found Greenland has cooled since the 1930's and 1940's, with 1941 being the warmest year on record. Another 2006 study concluded Greenland was as warm or warmer in the 1930’s and 40’s and the rate of warming from 1920-1930 was about 50% higher than the warming from 1995-2005. One 2005 study found Greenland gaining ice in the interior higher elevations and thinning ice at the lower elevations. In addition, the often media promoted fears of Greenland’s ice completely melting and a subsequent catastrophic sea level rise are directly at odds with the latest scientific studies. These studies suggest that the biggest perceived threat to Greenland’s glaciers may be contained in unproven computer models predicting a future catastrophic melt.

As a representative of Environment & Public Works Committee Ranking Member, Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), I made the trek to the Arctic Circle with the Senate delegation (LINK) to the land the Vikings once farmed during the Medieval Warm Period.

Senators and their staff viewed majestic giant glaciers and icebergs in the Kangia Ice Fjord and in Disko Bay via helicopter, boat and on foot, during the three day 24 hours of daylight trip which began in the Arctic city of Kangerlussuaq, Greenland.

In an informational handout, participants of the Senate trip to Greenland were shown a depiction of coastal flooding that illustrated what would happen if most of the ice on Greenland was to melt and sea levels rose nearly 20 feet. The handout on Greenland was written by UN scientist Dr. Richard B. Alley, who is also a professor of Geosciences at Penn State University and traveled with the Senate delegation. Dr. Alley noted that the illustration of coastal flooding was not a forecast or a prediction, but merely an illustration of what could happen.

Dr. Alley’s handout stated in part, “We don’t think Greenland could melt completely in less than many centuries, but it might get warm enough this century to start complete melting.”

During the trip, a Danish scientist and Danish government officials appealed to the U.S. government to act now to address global warming and used the prospect of Greenland melt fears as a wake up call for such action. But the very latest research reveals massive Greenland melt fears are not sustainable. According to a survey of some of the latest peer-reviewed scientific reports, current Greenland temperatures are neither alarming nor linked to a rise in man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

Sampling of Recent Scientific Studies:

1) A 2006 study by Danish researchers from Aarhus University found that “Greenland’s glaciers have been shrinking for the past century, suggesting that the ice melt is not a recent phenomenon caused by global warming.” (LINK) Glaciologist Jacob Clement Yde explained that the study was “the most comprehensive ever conducted on the movements of Greenland’s glaciers, according to an August 21, 2006 article in Agence France-Presse. “Seventy percent of the glaciers have been shrinking regularly since the end of the 1880’s,” Yde explained. [EPW Blog note: 80% of man-made CO2 emissions occurred after 1940. (LINK) ] Niels Tvis Knudsen of Aarhus University co-authored the paper.

2) A 2006 study by a team of scientists led by Petr Chylek of Los Alamos National Laboratory, Space and Remote Sensing Sciences found the rate of warming in 1920-1930 was about 50% higher than that in 1995-2005, suggesting carbon dioxide ‘could not be the cause’ of warming. (LINK)

“We find that the current Greenland warming is not unprecedented in recent Greenland history. Temperature increases in the two warming periods (1920-1930 and 1995-2005) are of similar magnitude, however the rate of warming in 1920-1930 was about 50% higher than that in 1995-2005,” the abstract of the study read.

The peer-reviewed study, which was published in the June 13, 2006 Geophysical Research Letters, found that after a warm 2003 on the southeastern coast of Greenland, “the years 2004 and 2005 were closer to normal being well below temperatures reached in the 1930’s and 1940’s.” The study further continued, “Almost all post-1955 temperature averages at Greenland stations are lower (colder climate) than the (1881-1955) temperature average.”

In addition, the Chylek led study explained, “Although there has been a considerable temperature increase during the last decade (1995 to 2005) a similar increase and at a faster rate occurred during the early part of the 20th century (1920 to 1930) when carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases could not be a cause. The Greenland warming of 1920-1930 demonstrates that a high concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is not a necessary condition for a period of warming to arise. The observed 1995-2005 temperature increase seems to be within natural variability of Greenland climate. A general increase in solar activity [Scafetta and West, 2006] since 1990’s can be a contributing factor as well as the sea surface temperature changes of tropical ocean [Hoerling et al., 2001].”

“To summarize, we find no direct evidence to support the claims that the Greenland ice sheet is melting due to increased temperature caused by increased atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide.” The co-authors of the study were M.K. Dubey of Los Alamos National Laboratory and G. Lesins, Dalhousie University in Canada.

3) An October 2005 study in the journal Science found Greenland’s higher elevation interior ice sheet growing while lower elevations ice is thinning. According to a November 8, 2005 article in European Research, “An international team of climatologists and oceanographers, led by the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC) in Norway, estimates that Greenland’s interior ice sheet has grown, on average, 6cm per year in areas above 1 500m between 1992 and 2003.” Lead author, Ola M. Johannessen of NERSC “says the sheet growth is due to increased snowfall brought about by variability in regional atmospheric circulation, or the so-called North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO),” according to the article. (LINK) & (LINK to Journal Science)

4) A June 6, 2006 peer-reviewed study published in Journal of Geophysical Research concluded: “The warmest year in the extended Greenland temperature record is 1941, while the 1930s and 1940s are the warmest decades.” The paper, entitled “Extending Greenland temperature records into the late 18th century,” was authored by B. Vinther, K. Andersen, P. Jones, K. Briffa, and J. Cappelen. The report examined temperature data from Greenland going back to 1784. (LINK) & (LINK) & (LINK)

5) A February 8, 2007 peer-reviewed paper published in Science found the melt rate of two of Greenland’s largest glaciers has “suddenly slowed, bringing the rate of melting last year down to near the previous rate,” according to the New York Times blog (2-8-07). (LINK) The report found that the Kangerdlugssuaq glacier’s “average thinning over the glacier during the summer of 2006 declined to near zero, with some apparent thickening in areas on the main trunk.” (LINK) University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory researcher Ian Howat, the lead author of the report, explained “Greenland was about as warm or warmer in the 1930’s and 40’s, and many of the glaciers were smaller than they are now.” “However, it does suggest that large variations in ice sheet dynamics can occur from natural climate variability,” Howat, also a researcher with the University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Center, explained. “Special care must be taken in how these and other mass-loss estimates are evaluated, particularly when extrapolating into the future because short-term spikes could yield erroneous long term trends,” Howat cautioned.

6) A July 6, 2007 study published in the journal Science about Greenland by an international team of scientists found DNA “evidence that suggests the frozen shield covering the immense island survived the Earth’s last period of global warming,” according to a Boston Globe article. (6-6-07) (LINK) According to the article, the study indicates “Greenland’s ice may be less susceptible to the massive meltdown predicted by computer models of climate change, the main author (Eske Willerslev, professor of evolutionary biology at University of Copenhagen) said in an interview. “This may have implications for how the ice sheets respond to global warming. They may withstand rising temperatures,” Willerslev said. The article explained, “The discovery of organic matter in ice dating from half –a-million years ago offers evidence that the Greenland ice sheet remained frozen even during the Earth’s last ‘interglacial period’ – some 120,000 years ago – when average temperatures were 9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than they are now.” Willerslev addressed scary computer model predictions of a massive Greenland melt. “[The study] suggests a problem with [computer] models” that predict melting ice from Greenland could drown cities and destroy civilizations, Willerslev said. The study found “Greenland really was green, before Ice Age glaciers enshrouded vast swaths of the Northern Hemisphere…somewhere between 450,000 and 800,000 years ago,” according to the article.

7) Climatologist Dr. Patrick Michaels of University of Virginia and the Virginia State climatologist wrote the scenario promoted by former Vice President Al Gore and others showing Greenland’s ice melting and raising sea levels by 20 feet is not supported anywhere in scientific literature, not even by the United Nations. “Where is the support for this claim? Certainly not in the recent [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)] Policymakers Summary from the United Nations. Under the [IPCC’s] medium-range emission scenario for greenhouse gases, a rise in sea level of between 8 and 17 inches is predicted by 2100. Gore’s film exaggerates the rise by about 2,000 percent,” Michaels wrote in a February 23, 2007 article. (LINK) “According to satellite data published in [the journal] Science in November 2005,” Michaels wrote, “Greenland was shedding ice at 0.4 percent per century.” “Nowhere in the traditionally [peer-reviewed] refereed scientific literature do we find any support for Gore’s [Greenland melt] hypothesis,” Michaels concluded.

8) Geologist Morten Hald, an Arctic expert at of the University of Tromso in Norway has also questioned the reliability of computer models predicting a melting Arctic. "The main problem is that these models are often based on relatively new climate data. The thermometer has only been in existence for 150 years and information on temperature which is 150 years old does not capture the large natural changes,” Hald, who is participating with a Norwegian national team in Arctic climate research, said in a May 18, 2007 article. (LINK) The article continued, “Professor Hald believes the models which are utilized to make prognoses about the future climate changes consider paleoclimate only to a minor degree.” “Studies of warm periods in the past, like during the Stone Ages can provide valuable knowledge to understand and tackle the warmer climate in the future,” Hald explained.

9) Polar expert Ivan Frolov, the head of Russia’s Science and Research Institute of Arctic and Antarctic Regions, said atmospheric temperature would have to much higher to make continental glaciers melt. “Many hundred years or 20-30 degree temperature rise would have made glaciers melt,” Frolov said in a December 14, 2006 Russian news article. (LINK) Frolov noted that currently Greenland’s and Antarctic glaciers have the tendency to grow. The article explained, “Frolov says cooling and warming periods are common for our planet – temperature fluctuations amounted to 10-12 degrees. However, such fluctuations haven’t caused glaciers to melt. Thus, we shouldn’t be afraid they melt today.”

10) Physicist Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu, the former director of both University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute and International Arctic Research Center who has twice been named one of the "1000 Most Cited Scientists," told a Congressional hearing in 2006 that highly publicized climate models showing a disappearing Arctic were nothing more than “science fiction.” "All the papers since (the advent of satellites) show warming. That's what I call 'instant climatology.' I'm trying to tell young scientists, 'You can't study climatology unless you look at a much longer time period.'” (LINK)

11) Ivy League geologist Dr. Robert Giegengack of the University of Pennsylvania rejected fears of a catastrophic 20 foot sea level rise. "Sea level is rising," Giegengack said, but it's been rising ever since warming set in 18,000 years ago, he explained according to a February 2007 article in Philadelphia Magazine. But the Earth's global ocean level is only going up 1.8 millimeters per year -- less than the thickness of one nickel, Giegengack further explained. “At the present rate of sea-level rise it’s going to take 3,500 years to get up there (to a rise of 20 feet) So if for some reason this warming process that melts ice is cutting loose and accelerating, sea level doesn’t know it. And sea level, we think, is the best indicator of global warming," he said. (LINK) Giegengack also noted that the history of the last one billion years on the planet reveals "only about 5% of that time has been characterized by conditions on Earth that were so cold that the poles could support masses of permanent ice." (LINK)

12) Prominent scientist Professor Nils-Axel Morner, declared "the rapid rise in sea levels predicted by computer models simply cannot happen." Morner, a leading world authority on sea levels and coastal erosion who headed the Department of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics at Stockholm University, noted on August 6, 2007: "When we were coming out of the last ice age, huge ice sheets were melting rapidly and the sea level rose at an average of one meter per century. If the Greenland ice sheet stated to melt at the same rate - which is unlikely - sea level would rise by less than 100 mm - 4 inches per century." Morner, who was president of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution from 1999 to 2003, has published a new booklet entitled "The Greatest Lie Ever Told," to refute claims of catastrophic sea level rise. (LINK)

13) In addition, current climate fears tends to ignore the fact that the Vikings arrived in Greenland around 1000 A.D. and found it to be habitable settlement that they farmed for hundreds of years. A 2003 Harvard University study found (LINK) the Earth was warmer than today during the Medieval Warm Period from about 800 to 1300 A.D. without modern SUV’s or man-made CO2 emissions. The Vikings abandoned Greenland when the Little Ice Age took hold.

14) Another problem for predictions of catastrophic sea level rise due to polar ice melt is Antarctica is not cooperating with the man-made catastrophic global warming models. “A new report on climate over the world's southernmost continent shows that temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models,” reads the February 15, 2007 press release announcing the findings of David Bromwich, professor of professor of atmospheric sciences in the Department of Geography, and researcher with the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University. (See: Antarctic temperatures disagree with climate model predictions LINK)

"It's hard to see a global warming signal from the mainland of Antarctica right now,” Bromwich explained. The release explains that Bromwich’s research team found “no increase in precipitation over Antarctica in the last 50 years. Most models predict that both precipitation and temperature will increase over Antarctica with a warming of the planet.”

Top UN Scientist Explains Why Climate Models Predictions Are Failing

Recently, a top UN scientist publicly conceded that climate computer model predictions are not so reliable after all. Dr. Jim Renwick, a lead author of the IPCC 4th Assessment Report, admitted to the New Zealand Herald in June 2007, “Half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don't expect to do terrifically well." (LINK)

A leading scientific skeptic of global warming fears, meteorologist Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, a scientific pioneer in the development of numerical weather prediction and former director of research at The Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute, took the critique of climate models that predict future doom a step further. Tennekes wrote on February 28, 2007, "I am of the opinion that most scientists engaged in the design, development, and tuning of climate models are in fact software engineers. They are unlicensed, hence unqualified to sell their products to society." (LINK)

Ivy League geologist Dr. Robert Giegengack of the University of Pennsylvania noted “for most of Earth’s history, the globe has been warmer than it has been for the last 200 years. It has rarely been cooler,” Giegengack said according to a February 2007 article in Philadelphia Magazine. (LINK) The article continued, “[Giegengack] says carbon dioxide doesn’t control global temperature, and certainly not in a direct linear way.”

Climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball explained that one of the reasons climate models fail is because they overestimate the warming effect of CO2 in the atmosphere. Ball described how CO2's warming impact diminishes. “Even if CO2 concentration doubles or triples, the effect on temperature would be minimal. The relationship between temperature and CO2 is like painting a window black to block sunlight. The first coat blocks most of the light. Second and third coats reduce very little more. Current CO2 levels are like the first coat of black paint,” Ball explained in a June 6, 2007 article in Canada Free Press. (LINK)

New data is revealing what may perhaps be the ultimate inconvenient truth for climate doomsayers:

Global warming stopped in 1998.

Dr. Nigel Calder, co-author with physicist Henrik Svensmark of the 2007 book “The Chilling Stars: A New Theory on Climate Change,” explained in July 2007: (LINK)

“In reality, global temperatures have stopped rising. Data for both the surface and the lower air show no warming since 1999. That makes no sense by the hypothesis of global warming driven mainly by CO2, because the amount of CO2 in the air has gone on increasing. But the fact that the Sun is beginning to neglect its climatic duty – of battling away the cosmic rays that come from ‘the chilling stars’ – fits beautifully with this apparent end of global warming.”

Perhaps the conversion of many former scientists from believers in man-made global warming to skeptics (LINK) and the new peer-reviewed research is why so many proponents of a climatic doom have resorted to threats and intimidation in attempting to silence skeptics. (See: EPA to Probe E-mail Threatening to ‘Destroy’ Career of Climate Skeptic - LINK )

One final note: To many residents of Greenland, a little warming may not be that bad. A June 7, 2007 Washington Post article detailed how Greenland’s residents were “cheering’ on warming. "I can keep the sheep out two weeks longer to feed in hills in the autumn. And I can grow more hay. The sheep get fatter," said one resident. (LINK)

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EPW Inhofe Press Blog Note: The above sampling of scientific studies and scientists are a sneak peak at a blockbuster U.S. Senate report set to be released in the Fall 2007 that will feature hundreds of scientists (many current and former UN scientists) who have spoken out recently against Gore, the UN, and the media driven climate “consensus.” Please keep checking this blog for updates.